Balkanarama’s Balkan Sheet Music Book!

As a service to musicians interested in learning and performing Eastern European music, here are some transcriptions by Balkanarama’s arranger, Mike Gordon. You may use these for your private enjoyment or to share with your band, but please don’t use them commercially without permission.

The charts include basic melody lines and chord progressions with occasional hints at ornamentation. They don’t include every nuance of the original — for that, you need to listen to original recordings or, better yet, learn from live performers skilled in the idiom. All the charts are in the keys we use; if you’d rather play them in another key, feel free to transpose them.

The charts are low-resolution .gif files — you’ll probably need to rewrite them to make them usable. I transcribed them from the recordings credited on each page. A couple are ancient handwritten scores, but most were scored in Finale. (I’ve tried posting Finale files on the Web for download using Finale’s SmartMusic viewer, but without success.)